Stand Off
by Gamebird
Summary: Some time after The Last Jedi, the First Order fights a battle on Jakku against the Resistance. Finn and Hux find themselves trapped together, forced to make peace and withstand alien monsters, hostile weather, unfriendly scavengers, and each other. Both men learn about a side of the other they didn't know existed. (No shipping, no romance. Mild gore.)


**A/N: For filigranka on Tumblr. Set post-TLJ. There is a battle on Jakku.**

 **I realize that concussions and shock don't work that way. For one thing, Hux would be deaf. But this is Star Wars and one of the conventions is that injuries are just as bad as they need to be for the story. So there.**

Finn transferred his blaster to his nondominant hand. The other had been shot and was bleeding, but the important part was that he couldn't hold the blaster steady. His aim wasn't as good with the other hand, but it was better than having the barrel wobble all over. The good thing was that since the Jakku sun had set, he wouldn't be much of a target. The bad thing was, he seemed to be the only one alive in this stretch of rock, sand, and ruin. He picked himself up, limping gingerly on what he suspected was a broken ankle, and headed over to what had at one point been an impromptu enemy line outside a crashed command shuttle.

Stormtroopers littered the ground. He sighed to see them, feeling a deep pang. They'd been doing the only thing they knew how to do. But the concussion grenade had ended them. He looked past them for his reason for coming over here instead of pulling back. It hadn't just been a desire to mourn. No – somewhere back here he'd seen an officer with orange hair and pale skin.

There was only one person who fit that description that he knew of. He supposed there were others – the First Order was a big organization and he didn't pretend to know all of them. But there were enough troopers around this hastily hardened outpost that this might have been someone important. He limped back further, having spotted a uniformed leg sticking out from behind a crumpled section of wing from the crashed command shuttle.

He came around it to see the entire man laid out on the sand-strewn rock, face down. He was alive, making some manner of noise. It sounded agonal. Maybe he was dying. Finn frowned. While he didn't have any special sympathy for General Hux, he was a high-value enough target that Finn couldn't, in good conscience, leave him here. He squatted down and went to one knee, favoring his injured ankle.

He pulled the man over to his back. Hux's eyes were open and bloodshot. His nose had bled. He'd obviously caught some of the concussive blast. He looked disoriented. He stared at Finn for a long moment, then said, "Eff … ffinn …"

"Finn. Right."

Hux looked off to the left at the scarred metal of the shuttle wing. He stared at it blankly, entirely unaware of the blaster Finn had on his knee, casually pointed at Hux's heart. Hux blinked a few times and reached up to wipe under his nose. He looked at the blood on his hand with alarm. "I'm injured." A lone TIE fighter streaked overhead against the darkening sky. "There was a battle. Is a battle. Is- Am I in command?"

"Not anymore. I'm taking you prisoner. The Resistance will decide what to do with you." He flipped aside Hux's greatcoat, pulling out the man's blaster and tossing it aside.

Hux watched him do it without interfering. "That was expensive."

Finn gave him a perplexed look at _that_ being the nature of his objection. "You didn't even buy it. It belonged to the Order."

"They have to pay for everything, you know."

"Yeah, right. You're not making much sense. Come on," he said, urging Hux to sit up. "Can you walk?"

"I don't know."

Finn holstered his blaster awkwardly and helped as Hux started to stand. Hux swayed dangerously. He grabbed at the wing section for support, cringing away from Finn's attempt to grab him.

"Get your hands off me!"

"General-"

"No!" Hux yanked his elbow out of Finn's grip and turned to slap the hand away. Then he lost his balance and fell. Finn grabbed at him again and with his bad ankle, lost his own balance. He fell on top of the general, who thrashed under him. "Get off me!"

The only reason why Finn did not end up gutted was because he was doing exactly as requested. He was rolling off to the side when a knife came through the air he'd recently occupied. "Whoa! What?" Finn grabbed Hux's wrist before he could slash at him again (and more accurately), but he was doing it with his injured dominant hand. It just didn't have the strength it should. Hux rotated the monomolecular blade so the tip sliced across Finn's forearm, cutting flesh like a hot knife through butter. It was so sharp didn't even sting. Finn wouldn't have known it had touched him if he hadn't been looking.

He yanked his arm upward and rolled to his back, taking Hux's with him and dragging Hux on top of him. Hux tried to get to his knees – a poor tactical decision, but head injuries did that to people. Finn got his other arm free and made short work of disarming the man, flinging the knife off in the direction the blaster had gone earlier. Hux looked off that way and started after it, over-focused on the weapon.

Finn grabbed him by one arm and the lapel of his greatcoat and rolled them again, Finn ending up on top and straddling him. He outweighed the general by a wide margin and was stronger and better trained in hand-to-hand. Hux looked startled by the quick change in dominance and was still. He looked confused. Finn slapped him across the face, not nearly as hard as he wanted and he was pulling the blow even as he was making it. He felt regret as the smack of sound hit his ears. He hadn't needed to do that – Hux was just lying there at that moment.

But no longer. Hux bared blood-stained teeth like an animal and fought, though badly. The only thing he did of any consequence was punch Finn in a sore spot on his ribs that he hadn't known had been hurt. It doubled Finn over to the side for a moment and Hux nearly bucked him off. Finn grabbed one of Hux's wrists and shoved it to the uneven ground over his head. Hux's other fist hit him across the jaw, but without leverage or wind-up to be more than annoying. In a moment, Finn had that wrist as well.

"Stop! Stop it!"

Hux jerked a couple times under him and then squirmed.

"Stop it," Finn said more calmly. He had both of Hux's wrists pinned and his body controlled by virtue of sitting on Hux's torso. Hux's legs were free, but there was nothing in range for him to kick. "Stop, General." Hux blinked at him repeatedly with bloodshot eyes. He swallowed and licked the blood off his upper lip. He jerked again against Finn's hands. "Stop," Finn repeated, looking at him. "Do you understand me?" It was an honest question, not rhetorical. He could feel Hux still twitching under him, but it felt spasmodic rather than intentional.

"No. Yes? I-" Hux kept shifting, panting as he did so.

Finn took a little more weight onto his knees rather than sitting quite so hard on him. "Don't try to get away. Just lie there."

"Right?"

"Right. Yeah. That's what we're doing. 'Kay?"

"Right." Hux moved a little less, calming down.

Finn drew in a deep breath and let it out. "Great. A general with a head injury. I'm going to have to restrain you somehow."

Hux huffed a laugh. "This isn't enough? Ha."

Finn smiled at him. "Well, uh, both my hands are occupied and I can't get up. So, yeah. I need to find some binders for you." He looked around at what he could see. It was getting worryingly dark. "You didn't happen to have any around here, did you?"

Hux turned his head to one side and then the other. "Where are we?"

Finn looked back at him sharply. "Do you even know what planet you're on?"

"No."

"Great."

"You say I'm on a planet. This isn't a simulation?"

Finn hesitated. It hadn't occurred to him that General Hux might have (must have) gone through training himself, probably simulation training. He hadn't always been a general. At some point, he'd been a cadet, tossed into situations to see if his training would hold up. A plan hatched in Finn's mind. "Yes, it is. You're good."

"It is?"

"Yes. We're on the same team. You and me. That's why I can't be having you trying to stab me. Got it?" Hux blinked at him uncertainly. Finn released his wrists. "No fighting, okay? We're on the same team."

"We are?" He sounded dubious.

Finn got off him and sat to the side, poised to grab him again if necessary. "We are."

"Didn't you say something about being prisoners?"

"I did, and uh, we were, but now we aren't. We're on the same team. It's a stress exercise. You remember those, right?" Hux nodded. Finn went on, "They're designed to make you disoriented. You start with bad intel. Remember?" Hux nodded again. Finn continued spouting bullshit: "I thought you were a prisoner, but you're not."

Hux called his bluff. "Then give me back my weapons."

Finn hesitated again. "You're not going to use them on me, are you?"

"If we're on the same team, then of course not."

They stared at each other for a long moment, then Finn recovered the blaster and knife. He looked at the slice on his forearm. Thankfully it was not deep, but it was stinging now and bleeding. Hux, too, was bleeding from his nose since he'd sat up. Finn's earlier slap had restarted the blood. The man's face was puffy. Finn extended the weapons. "Don't use these on me, 'kay?"

Hux looked from them to Finn and slowly reached out to take them. He said nothing, just looked at Finn as he held both, seeming to think it over. Finally, he looked down and holstered the blaster, then returned the knife to some hidden scabbard up his sleeve. Finn exhaled in relief.

"Where are we?" Hux asked.

"We're, uh …"

"You said we were on a planet. We don't have any simulation chambers this large."

"We're in a cave. On a planet. I don't know which one. They didn't tell me." That much was normal – not being told about things. Hux looked up at the empty sky. Finn said, "There are screens up there. Like in all the sim rooms."

"I would have known if we had a simulation chamber this large."

Finn smirked. "Are you sure?"

Hux's certainty faded in front of Finn's eyes. "No," he said after a moment. "Snoke did many things without telling me."

Finn nodded. "Yeah. That's how it is, all the way up and down. We can't make good decisions because we don't know what the hell's going on!" Anger welled up in his words.

Hux looked at him askance, but said nothing. He wiped at his nose, smearing the blood around more than anything else. "What's the scenario?"

"Stay alive until we get picked up. I think we're both too injured to get out."

Hux nodded. "Then – survival. We should see if there's a survival kit in the shuttle. Or- no, communications. That's the first priority. We should signal for extraction and recovery. Let them know where we are. We should at least go through the motions, if this is a simulation."

"Good idea," Finn agreed. He wasn't sure Hux believed him. "I'll go see what we have." He limped, climbed, and dragged his way into the shuttle, which turned out to be more difficult than expected. The thing was tilted crazily and half buried, nose first, in sand and fractured rock. It was amazing anyone had survived the crash at all. He tossed out a survival pack. There were two on board, but the other was jammed between a pair of bent struts. He couldn't pull it out and didn't need it anyway. Getting back to the ground was easier than getting in, aside from avoiding landing on his hurt ankle.

Hux had moved himself up to the top of the ridge they'd crashed against and was lying on his belly, watching the horizon. He had his blaster out, but holstered it as he turned to scoot back down to where Finn was laying out the supplies. "There's a dogfight going on over there, but it might as well be on the moon given how far away it is."

"Communication is shot," Finn said. He took off his jacket and set to bandaging his forearm. He kept an eye on Hux. The man sounded more focused and mentally together than he had earlier.

"Let me take a look at it. I worked communications when I was a junior officer."

"No, there's nothing wrong with the unit," Finn explained. "There's no power. Everything's dead."

"Ah. I can't fix that."

Finn shook his head as he struggled to finish his forearm one-handed. Hux just watched him without offering help. Finn managed it, sloppily, then moved to put a second bacta pad on the blaster scoring on the bicep of his dominant arm. "You thought you could fix the other though?"

Hux shrugged. "I know my way around circuitry."

"Huh." Finn watched as Hux sorted through the survival pack. He took up a flask of water and drank some of it, then tipped it too far up, lost his balance and fell over with a startled curse. Finn barked a laugh and then scrambled to keep the water from spilling. They were in a desert, after all. His eyes merry, Finn said, "You're really messed up, aren't you?"

"I have no balance." Hux righted himself and leaned against the rock outcropping. He wiped at his nose again, sniffling. By now, he had given himself a gross red moustache. He grimaced at his hand and tipped his head back.

Finn poured some water on a loose piece of gauze and moved closer. "Hold still."

"What?" Hux jumped at the contact.

Finn slipped his free hand around the guy's neck to hold him. "I told you – hold still."

"Don't touch me!"

The alarm in Hux's voice was comical. Finn looked at the gauze, then at Hux, who was squirming against his hand like he didn't know what to do about it. "Have you ever been touched at all?"

"I've been hit plenty! Keep your hands off me!"

Finn's face sobered. "Even stormtroopers take care of each other."

"I'm not a stormtrooper, you imbecile!"

Finn smiled briefly at the gratuitous insult. "I guessed that, _General_. I don't know what you guys do with officer training that makes all of you mean as rathtars, but first aid is not an assault. Calm down." The guy wasn't trying to stab him at least.

Hux swallowed. "You might 'take care of' someone in officer training, but it means something distinctly different."

Finn blinked at him. "Well, I'm the one who has to look at your face. It's disgusting right now. There's no mirror for you to do this yourself. Just hold still. This won't hurt." Also, Finn had to admit to a certain pleasure in manhandling the guy who was reportedly behind the psychological conditioning program for stormtroopers.

Hux swallowed and moved his shoulder under Finn's hand. He flinched when Finn wiped his face and a few more times as Finn continued doing it. Hux kept his eyes locked on Finn's the whole time. It was creepy, like Hux saw right through his offer of help and knew why he was really doing it. Finn finished with his face, then put the gauze on Hux's knee. "For your hands. You can do those."

"Yes," Hux said in a quiet voice. "I can." The man blinked uncertainly at him and then moved on to his hands with a sniff.

Finn frowned, feeling awkward. "I'm going to check the area before it gets dead dark." He limped off, stopping at each of the downed stormtroopers to look them over. They were dead, but he felt better for having checked, just in case someone was in need of help. None of them had functional long-range communication gear, which was his other priority in looking. He noted their designations: FN-4389, FN-5581, and FN-8210. His own unit, though he hadn't known these personally. There were others, but he couldn't make out the numbers. It was getting really dark. Part of the horizon looked blotted out.

He moved to his craft, a crashed speeder. The comm wasn't working for it, either, and he wasn't familiar enough with the tiny ship to know how to send out a distress signal. He wondered if the command shuttle was doing that. It should be, it occurred to him, and if it was, then the First Order might be the ones to rescue them instead of the Resistance.

With a sigh, he headed back, mulling over that possibility. There was a cold wind starting to whip along the fine sand. He saw a small camp light was going when he returned. Hux had found a meal bar in the survival kit and was fastidiously breaking it into tiny pieces with his fingers before putting each bit in his mouth. Another meal bar, unopened, sat on the other side of the lamp.

Finn picked it up. "Is this for me?"

"Yes."

"Thanks. That's weird." Hux did not comment on how odd it was for an officer to share food with a trooper. He kept his eyes down and continued picking at his food like a screwball. Finn unwrapped the meal bar. "Why don't you just bite a chunk out of it? I'm not going to tell anyone if you eat like a savage." He took a bite to demonstrate.

"I was facing the blast when it went off. I have broken bones in my face, but I need to eat."

"Oh. I didn't hit you that-" He shut himself up. Hux looked at him inquiringly. "You remember the blast?" Finn asked.

"I also remember you hitting me." Hux gave him a thin smile. "Striking an officer. That's a capital offense for a stormtrooper." Finn grimaced. Hux ate another bit of meal bar. "We can dispense with the charade if you wish. I've worked it out."

"I'd been wondering," Finn said warily.

"The distinct lack of 'sir' was a bit of a tip-off, in case the way you're dressed wasn't enough. Or perhaps you were hoping I wouldn't recognize you, which I didn't immediately."

"Oh. Why haven't you shot me?"

"Well, you have not killed _me_ , which means you think I have some use to you alive. As such, you're unlikely to simply let me die. As you have so ably demonstrated, I am easily overwhelmed, sat upon, and subjected to indignities should you so desire. I don't see anywhere nearby worth crawling to. I don't know who's going to rescue us or when. And this is Jakku. There's a reason why everyone stays inside at night, even though it's cooler then."

Finn's eyes widened. "How do you know anything about Jakku?"

Hux smiled ruefully. "I spent a little formative time here as a child. I don't recall details of the wildlife, but I remember it was an issue. There are corpses all around us. It seems wisest for me to keep you alive." He held up a bit of meal bar. "And companionable."

A long, eerie ululation sounded over the dunes. Finn said, "We need to get inside the shuttle."

Hux didn't argue. He looked up at the entrance. "What's it like in there?"

"Sideways," Finn said. He started putting things back in the survival pack. "But the important thing is there's one way in and one way out. It limits what we need to keep an eye on." Hux folded up the remainder of his meal bar and tucked it into a pocket of his greatcoat. Finn picked up the camp light. "Are we going to work together on this?"

"Yes."

"Okay. None of this 'shooting me in the back' business, right?"

"Of course not. I'd have to stand watch alone then."

Finn got to his feet with the pack. "That's not what I want to hear, but I suppose any kind of temporary truce is too much to ask."

"This _is_ a temporary truce."

Finn started up the side of the ship with the pack on his back. At the top, he swung it off and lowered it inside. It slid away on the tilted floor. He turned to jump down, but saw that Hux was clinging to the hull, making his own way up. "I was going to come back and get you."

"And do what? Hoist me up there on your back? Keep going. Besides, you didn't say you would. I should be fine if I can hold onto something."

Finn hauled himself the rest of the way in and braced himself at the top. The dark area of the horizon was bigger, he saw, with an occasional flash of lightning underneath it. "There's a storm coming in," he told Hux as the general reached the top.

Hux peered off in that direction. "Lovely. Does this door shut?"

"Not without power." They were using an emergency exit that had been used after the crash. Finn couldn't see enough of it to tell if it was an expelled panel or a sliding door. The main ramp wasn't open. Without power, the hulk was simply an artificial cave. "Here," Finn said. "Grab my arm. I'll lower you in."

Hux gave him a guarded look, then took the offered assistance with a strange sort of twitch like he still didn't want to touch him. Finn lowered him down until Hux's feet found some degree of purchase. Hux let go. Finn lowered himself in next, coming down right next to Hux because they were both using the pedestal of a seat as their footing.

"Get off me," Hux said, but it was more exasperated now than the desperate tone he'd had earlier.

Finn leaned away, but then Hux grabbed his shoulder for balance. "What do you want me to do here, General?"

Hux huffed. "Just shut up."

Finn pulled the camp light out of his pocket. At that point, Hux transferred his hand to the back of the seat in front of them. Once able to see, he moved away, using the edge of the instrument panel for balance.

By unspoken agreement, they each claimed a section of 'floor' for themselves. It was the V made by the floor and the side of the front control panel. None of the chairs could be occupied at this angle. There were no bodies, for which Finn was grateful. He put the survival pack between them, camp light on top of it.

Hux arranged himself in the far corner, facing and looking up at the entrance. For several minutes, they heard nothing but the whipping of the wind and the distant boom of thunder. Then there was the crinkle of packaging as Hux pulled out his meal bar to resume eating.

Finn asked, "Do you think this thing sends out an automated distress signal once the power goes out?"

"Assuming that system wasn't damaged in the crash or before it. Obviously, we took enough fire to overwhelm the shields and bring down the ship. And that's before we hit the ground. Of course, they might have higher priorities than recovering units from the field."

"You're a general," Finn pointed out. "They're going to come get you. Aren't you in charge or something now?"

"They don't know I'm alive. Also, you misunderstand the Order's ruthlessness if you think they won't abandon me about as quickly as one of those troopers."

Finn snorted. "You're joking."

"Am I? What makes you think I have a sense of humor? Especially at a time like this."

Finn chuckled. "Point. But stormtroopers are trained to give their lives for officers."

"And they did. But stormtroopers are not the ones making decisions on whether to commit ships and personnel to potentially pointless rescue. And again I say – they have no reason to believe I'm alive. The First Order has a clearly established chain of command. Kill the leader – or shoot me down over the battlefield – and a second will smoothly transition into place. That's how it works. That's how you were trained. That's how I was trained."

Finn pressed his lips together and stared at the general. "Your life matters."

"No, it doesn't. Why should it?"

"You are- We are- We're more than just cogs in a machine! Don't you see that?"

"No."

Finn blinked at him. "So what are you going to do when they don't come rescue you? Huh?"

"I will rejoin them as soon as I am able."

Finn stared at him. "You really believe that, don't you?"

"Where else would I go?"

"No, I mean," Finn said, "you believe all that stuff you spewed in the morning announcements. That … propaganda. You _believe_ that!"

In an icy voice, Hux said, "Why would I have said it if I didn't?"

"To make other people believe it. So you could benefit from it, by having an army of obedient slaves!"

"Slaves are unreliable." Hux sniffed. "Programming is better."

"Programming. But _you_ applied the programming."

"You think I wasn't programmed as well? The First Order is a machine, as you've implied. We will continue until we have victory."

"And then what?"

"There will be order in the galaxy again. Prosperity. Technological advancement. No more need for war."

By now, Finn was genuinely curious. "But what happens to the machine then, General? The programming doesn't go away. The star destroyers don't disappear. The stormtroopers are still stormtroopers."

Hux gave him an uneasy look. It took him longer than before to find words. "We … we would have to reconsider. There will always be some malcontents so total disarmament wouldn't be appropriate, but as for the rest … we'd have to stop. The, the machine could be repurposed. Maybe to exploration and expansion."

Finn gave him a long, level look. "What about restoring some of the places you've already trampled on the way to victory?"

"I'm … not sure that we're well-suited to that." Hux's moment of openness seemed to end and he snapped, "This isn't a discussion I'm-" There was a noise outside, a clatter they both recognized as stormtrooper armor being moved carelessly, like the rattle an empty armor suit made when issued in its mesh bag. There was a snapping noise and a whuffing growl. They both drew their blasters.

The hull of the ship rung like someone was drumming enormous fingers on it and two phosphorescent eyes popped into the empty hatch above them. Hux didn't hesitate. He lifted his blaster and fired, the bolt slashing out through the hatch and into the sky. Although his aim was perfect – directly between the two bobbing spots of light, he hit nothing. Finn saw enough to make out that they were stalked appendages of some sort, yanked out of sight after Hux fired.

Hux might have seen the same. He stood and leaned his shoulder against the chair in front of him, using it for cover and as a brace. He aimed at the hatchway and waited. "Should we dim the light?"

Finn shook his head. "Then they'll be able to see us and we won't be able to see anything. We leave it." He was listening to the drumming of many feet across the hull as the creature circled the hatch. He saw the corner of the deep grey of the sky through the hatch turn darker as a nearer shadow rose up to peek in – no glowing orbs this time. Hux hadn't reacted – maybe he hadn't seen it. Finn raised his blaster slowly as the darkness loomed up. He saw a brief gleam of reflection off something shiny – he had the impression of chitinous fangs before he depressed the trigger.

He hit it, but it threw itself inside the shuttle anyway. A hole blasted through its neck wasn't enough to stop it, but it was enough to decide its target. It leaped on Finn. It was a cross between a centipede and a snake. It was twice as long as Finn was tall and about as wide, but flat and scuttling with enormous pincers as long as his hand.

The thing landed on him, smashing him into the angle made by the floor and the instrument panel. A few shots flew past it, blowing up the chair. The creature's head reared up and to the side with a hiss as it unfurled those nasty pincers. Finn fumbled to try to get his blaster up, but there was no time. It lashed forward and he yanked himself to the side. Fangs sunk into his shoulder, but retracted almost immediately. The thing turned and bit at him again, going for the mass of his torso. He fired his blaster with no idea where it was pointed. He didn't care at this point. Other blasts were sounding. The thing raked his side from armpit to hipbone anyway, laying him open.

It jerked back then and convulsed. Finn got his blaster up and shot it in the head. It twitched sickeningly. Hux shot it at least four more times. One of the bolts seared his calf. "Stop! Stop it! You're going to hit me! You're already hitting me!"

The shots stopped. Finn struggled out from beneath the collapsing mass of monster bug-snake. Shakily, he climbed over the survival pack and crowded next to Hux.

"This is my side of the ship!" Hux said in an offended tone.

"There is a giant, dead snake-monster on my side!" Finn pointed indignantly.

The brief look Hux gave him was priceless in how amused he was. "Bad luck for you, then."

"I'm on your side now. Deal with it!"

"I don't want you on my side. You're a traitor." Hux was still standing where he'd been before, braced against the chair. He wasn't looking at Finn, but rather watching the hatch. Outside of it, the wind was starting to pick up. They could hear it in the increased whisper of sand, but that would also cover the sound of any approaching predator or other creature that might want to seek shelter with them. Or eat them.

"Yeah, well, we're on the same side now!" Finn noticed Hux wasn't doing anything threatening to him – at least not yet – so he sat on the instrument panel and braced his working foot on the angled deck. He supposed if he had to get shot in a leg, it was nice it was the one he already had a bunged up ankle on. "Do you think these things are poisonous?" He looked at his savaged right arm. He could barely lift it. It felt wrong, deep inside.

"I don't know. Did you eat some of it?"

Finn blinked at the back of Hux's head. "Venomous, then. Force, you're an asshole."

Hux glanced back at him to smirk, then went back to watching the hatch. "I have no idea. That's a sandstrider, by the way."

"I thought you didn't remember anything about the wildlife!"

"I remember a little."

Finn panted, trying to catch his breath as the adrenaline wore off. His side was bleeding, the blood running into his pants and soaking the back of them. His left hand was shaking. He felt cold and his stomach was in a knot more painful than anything else going on with him. "I'm going into shock."

"And the night is still young," Hux said dryly.

He couldn't tell if that was a joke or not. "I need you to help me."

"I seem to recall you striking me in my broken face. I've been backhanded plenty in my life, but never like that."

"You ordered my execution!"

Hux looked back at him then, lip curled. "You defected from the Order! And the worst sort of treason, too. You didn't simply leave. You fought against us!" He sounded so personally betrayed by that. Even in his condition, it gave Finn pause. Hux went on, "What did you think we would do if we got our hands on you again?"

"You were shooting innocent people! The miners on Pressy's Tumble. The villagers in Tuanul. Everything you did to the Otomok system. Even those people on Takodana. They weren't doing anything to you!"

"For a stormtrooper, you don't seem to understand much about war." Hux turned back to watch the hatch.

"For a human being, you don't seem to understand much about people! For a general, peace? Allies? You should understand something …" Nothing seemed to be making much sense. He felt disoriented and confused. His side hurt. Finn felt himself slump and his chin hit his chest. Then he jerked aware as he was slapped lightly.

"Trooper!" Hux snapped at him. Finn blinked at the man. Was he back in the Order? Had the Resistance been a dream? General Hux was facing him, hair in disarray, a new trickle of blood from his nose. "Stay focused. You have a duty." Hux shook the top of Finn's blaster, held loosely in his left hand. Finn tightened his grip on it reflexively. Hux said, "Watch that hatch!" He pointed at the black square.

"Yes sir." Training kicked in and Finn did as he was told.

Hux holstered his blaster and squatted to pick up the camp light. He shone it on Finn's shoulder and then down his side. Finn struggled to keep watch. "You're not going to just let me die?"

"Watch the hatch. You might be useful yet."

"Not like this."

"You have eyes and a trigger finger." A moment later, like he'd just thought of it, he added, "Also, I want a deal." He looked at Finn seriously. "If your Resistance friends come to rescue you, you will convince them to let me go safely. In exchange, I won't let you die. Deal?"

"And if your people get here first?"

"Same."

"I can trust you?"

"More than I can trust you, as I am a general able to enforce my will on whoever shows up for me and I have no idea how much pull you have with your new friends. You might be unable to arrange my freedom. If you promise to make an honest attempt, then it's a risk I'll take."

"And if I don't take this deal, you'll just let me bleed out?"

"You'll certainly get to find out," Hux said.

"I'll take the deal."

"Very well." But despite the reassuring words, Hux drew his knife.

"Whoa!" Finn brought his blaster around.

Hux reached across him to grab the barrel of the weapon. The knife, he held high and out of the way. "Stop! Stop it!" Hux yelled at him.

It occurred to Finn that they'd been yelling that a lot at each other. He was breathing hard again, his finger hovering on the trigger. But if Hux was going to stab him, he'd already had his chance. He looked at the knife. "What's that for?"

"I was going to cut your shirt away so I could better see the nature of your injury."

"Oh."

"If I'm going to stab you to death, it won't be after we've made terms." Hux shoved the blaster away and bent to pick up the camp light, almost tumbling to the floor in the process. His balance was still crap. He set the light on the instrument panel and lifted Finn's torn clothing. He cut it along the hem and again at the shoulder, peeling it back.

"What's it look like?"

Hux switched knife for light and examined him. "Messy."

"Are my guts falling out?"

"No. It's not very deep. It hasn't penetrated the abdominal wall. If I were trying to kill you, I would consider this insufficient. Nothing vital has been damaged and you have such a bulk of muscle that I'm not even sure the laceration goes to the bone." Finn hissed a little as Hux prodded at the injury.

"Okay. You know, like, first aid, right?"

Hux looked up at him and smiled. "I said I knew my way around circuitry. My skill with the human body does not extend much further than knowing how to kill one."

Finn growled. "Does anyone in the whole First Order know how to do anything other than kill people? That's ridiculous, Hux."

"I do not give you leave to address me that way. Watch the hatch."

Finn rolled his eyes and did as directed, but at least he wasn't feeling as light-headed as before. The knot in his stomach and the overwhelming feeling of fatigue had passed. Hux dragged the survival pack closer and squatted to begin fishing through it. Finn asked, "What are you going to do then?"

"That depends on what's in here and how clear the instructions are on how to use it. I said I wouldn't _let_ you die. That doesn't mean you might not die anyway. Ah, here." He pulled out a spray cannister and held it to the light, reading the label. "This will do."

"What's that?"

"Antiseptic. Are you still watching the hatchway?"

"Yes," Finn said sullenly, looking back at it.

"What's going on with it?"

"Sand is coming through it. I think the storm's on us."

"Oh, not yet. I remember the storms." Hux switched for his knife and did a more serious job of cutting away Finn's shirt. He pulled some kind of wadding from the pack and cleaned around the edges of the gash. Then more wadding and a wound irrigator. Finally, he sprayed everything – shoulder and side – with the antiseptic.

Finn asked, "What were you doing on Jakku of all places? During your … formative years or whatever?"

"What am I doing on Jakku now?" Right at that second, he was digging in the pack again.

Finn's brows pulled together. "Fighting a war?"

"Exactly. Your file said you were sharp. Though I was just learning my place in everything back then." He had two bacta patches in his hand.

"Are there are more bacta patches? Are those big enough? Does that antiseptic stuff interfere with bacta?"

"No," Hux answered.

"To which question?"

"All of them. Hold still." He cut open one of them and smeared the jelly-like contents across the gash on Finn's side. When done, he wiped his fingers off and put the other patch on Finn's shoulder. Then back to the pack for tape. After taping down the shoulder patch, he moved on to Finn's side.

"Are you … taping me back together?"

"What else should I do? Leave the wound open to whatever contaminant you might encounter? Bacta loses effectiveness if it dries out."

"Huh. Okay. Just seems like the wrong thing."

"In case I was unclear previously, FN-2187, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm open to suggestions."

"My name's Finn."

"What?"

"My name is Finn."

"Finn?"

"Yeah." He waited to see if Hux would mock that or be angry about it. To Finn's surprise, he just said, "Hm," and went on with the taping.

"Anything else?" Hux wiped his hands on wadding.

Finn looked at him for a long moment, seeing him as just another human being. He looked from Hux to his side and back again. "Thank you." From Hux's expression, he didn't know what to do with gratitude any more than Finn knew much about extending it. So Finn said, "If you want to take over watching, I'll see what I can do about my leg."

Hux nodded and returned to his previous position – knife in scabbard, blaster out – while Finn found numbing spray and a bandage for the blaster scorch on his calf. He had just finished taping it down when the latest clap of thunder didn't fade, but instead increased to a dull roar.

Hux said, "There's the storm." The shuttle vibrated faintly and the sound of sand and debris rattling against it increased dramatically. The storm was preceded by a wail of wind, whistling and howling over the open hatch. The air became hazy. "Air filters!" Hux said. They both turned to the pack. Hux had to grab for the chair, nearly falling over in his haste.

Finn found respirators and handed one over. He wrapped the other over his hand one-handedly. He'd holstered his blaster. It seemed unlikely that they'd be attacked in the middle of a haboob. He looked up to see Hux holstering his blaster as well and using one hand to carefully hold the mask to his face – a face that was puffy and strange-looking by now.

Sand drizzled in faster than before, blasted in by the occasional gust. But though it drifted down on them, they were protected from its direct fury. After what seemed like a half hour of unchanging tempest, Hux raised his voice to be heard over the storm, asking, "Is there further water in the pack?"

Finn found a bottle and handed it over, then rifled through the pack to take stock. "There are two more. There's another pack up there, but I couldn't pull it out. I could climb in there with your knife and cut it open if we end up stuck here long enough to need what's in it. How long do these storms last?"

"Hours or days," Hux answered. They listened to the hull being steadily sandblasted. Finn was quietly grateful they were inside a secure shelter, even if the place stank of dead sandstrider and there was barely room for the both of them on this side of the shuttle. Hux sipped his water. After a while, he cleared his voice and asked, "What is it like … on the outside?"

Finn looked toward the hatch. "Out there?"

"Outside of the First Order. Not necessarily in the Resistance. What's it like … what was it like in the Republic? For real?"

"That's a … really big question." Finn looked Hux over. He wondered why the guy was asking, then realized it was probably because the guy had no clue. "I guess … the most important thing was … there was no one was telling me what to do, where to go, or who to fight for. No schedule. No chain of command. I was in charge of my own life. I am, that is. I am in charge of my own life now."

"And yet you're part of the Resistance, an opposing military. That involves following orders, I presume?"

"It's different. We're fighting for all the same things you said – we want prosperity, an end to war, more technology I suppose but I haven't heard people talking about that one specifically, so much as they want infrastructure so they can live and have a future. Those are the things the First Order is taking away from them right now, and has been for decades – as long as you and me have been alive. Maybe longer."

Hux gave him a long, thoughtful look, the sort of look Finn would have never believed he was capable of. But Finn, too, had seen the general as a sort of caricature – a screaming, maniacal officer in a starched uniform and gelled hair. It was far from the man in front of him – rumpled, bloody, somewhat broken, and willing to tolerate the company of a traitor, even making promises to him and providing aid. Hux asked, "What is it like for you in the Resistance?"

"It's good," Finn said. "I like it. I have friends. I have a family."

"A family?" Hux scoffed.

"Yeah, General," Finn said slowly. Emotion suffusing his voice and making it waver, he said, "I have people who love me."

Hux was silent. Finn watched his profile. He had a burning suspicion of why Hux was asking these questions – the man was no happier in the Order than anyone else. If it were true, then that was amazing. Finn wanted to blurt out all the benefits to joining the Resistance, but he was pretty sure that would shut him down. Hux said, "What is that like?"

Finn stared at him in wonder. Had Hux just asked what it was like to have someone love you? Hux was looking at the irregular trickle of sand falling into the shuttle, making a small mound in the center and streaming down slowly to heap up around the tail of the sandstrider. "It's fantastic," Finn said slowly. "It's worth everything to know that someone thinks of you that way, looks up to you, believes the best of you and is willing to overlook the worst." His use of 'you' instead of 'me' was intentional.

Hux's lips pressed together tighter, but otherwise he just kept watching the sand accumulate.

Finn said, "It's like the two of us in here, just talking and not being at each other's throats. That feels a lot better than trying to kill each other. It's like that, but a hundred times better. Where, not only can you be relaxed with the other person, but they actually want you there."

"The one who loves you – is it the same one who bit me?"

Finn snorted a laugh at that memory and looked away. "Um … yeah."

Hux sighed. "That's not why you left, though. You didn't know she existed until after you'd defected."

"I didn't leave for love of her specifically. I did it because I couldn't kill people."

"That hasn't kept you from killing my troopers."

"Innocent people."

"Innocence?" Hux snorted dismissively.

"They didn't deserve to be killed," Finn insisted, but he knew he'd lost that brief moment where he could almost imagine someone like Hux renouncing the Order and running away to live a different life. It had been a ridiculous thought, he knew. Now they were back to the old sticking point of abusing the weak.

Hux looked at him for a moment. "That applies to both the troopers and whoever these hypothetical innocents are that you refer to."

Finn opened his mouth to object, then closed it. "You know – you're right. None of us, either side, deserve to die. We need to find a way to end this. We're both fighting for the same thing."

Hux gave him a long side-eye. "The Resistance could always surrender."

"Okay, fine. What if we did? And just went back to being citizens. We talked about this earlier. At what point does the First Order stop waging war on everyone, stop strip-mining planets, stop abducting children, stop funding and operating this war machine? You won the moment Hosnian Prime went up. The only reason that wasn't a victory was because you didn't let it be one."

Hux gave him another long look, this time direct. When he looked away, he licked his lips and grimaced in an odd bag of mixed signals. Finn wasn't surprised when Hux changed the subject entirely. "It doesn't look like the storm is likely to blow over soon. Do you want to sleep in shifts or … some other arrangement?" Hux frowned at what passed for floorspace. "We should shove some of the sand over there to cover your blood and fill the corner. It might make it more comfortable."

"Right," Finn agreed, really looking the guy over and noting how Hux wasn't meeting his eyes anymore. He wondered what that meant. "Yeah, we should get some sleep."

* * *

When Finn woke, it was quiet enough that he could hear the distant whine of engines. Hux slumbered on. They were both more or less sitting, facing one another with legs extended and parallel, feet by one another's hips. Sand had drifted over their legs and, on Finn's side, up to his waist. Hux woke as Finn pulled himself free and stood unsteadily. His ankle was swollen, but not grossly so. He hobbled.

"What?" Hux said. His face was distorted and both eyes were blacked. The respirator had fallen away sometime during the night.

"There's a ship in the air," Finn said, clambering over the sand so he could use the panels and chairs on the far side to pull himself up to the hatch. It was much more difficult with only one working arm, but he made it. Hux followed him.

Outside, the sun was shining brightly over one horizon. The sky was hazy and pink. All around them, signs of the battle were gone, erased like it had never happened. Only the butt end of the shuttle remained exposed. Finn could see the ship he'd heard. It was a large skimmer or a skiff, moving parallel to them. At this distance, he couldn't make out anything else about it. He raised his left arm and waved.

"Do you think they can see you?" Hux asked. He was sitting on the lip of the hatch, his legs dangling inside. Finn had moved a little further up, his feet braced on a crumpled bit of hull. "What are you going to do if they're First Order?"

"Hope for the best," Finn said. "Hey! They're turning. They've seen me!" He grinned at Hux. The smile vanished. The general was idly checking his blaster. "Ah man, you gave your word." He was disappointed, partly in himself for thinking they'd reached an understanding and partly in Hux for being such a bastard.

"So I did." Hux blew sand out of the mechanisms and reholstered the weapon. "But not to them. I don't recognize that ship design and the engines are out of calibration. It must be your friends. The deal as I understood it was that regardless of which side arrives first, we won't kill the other and will do our best to see to it that our side safely releases the other. Should you fail to secure my release, I would prefer to die fighting."

Finn regarded him soberly. His disappointment had been misplaced. "Okay. That's the deal." He turned back, shielding his eyes to study the approaching skiff. Hux was right about the sound. The engine chugged, probably clogged from all the lingering dust in the air. It wasn't a First Order vessel, but other than that, he couldn't tell what it was. When it finally drew up close, Finn blinked at the motley assortment of beings aboard it. None of them were human.

One of them, a Kyozo, yelled at him in two other languages before trying Basic. "This is our wreck now! Get off it!"

"What?" Finn asked. "What are you, scavengers?"

"Big war here! What, you soldier? No more war! Just salvage ops now. This wreck is now property of Constable Zuvio of Niima Outpost. You two, get off! That whole shuttle there?"

Hux said, "Take us with you to this Niima Outpost and this shuttle is yours. Otherwise, this is my ship and I'll defend it."

One of the other beings argued with the speaker in a language Finn didn't know. The speaker called out again, "Get off!"

"Let us on your skiff, agree to take us to civilization, and we will," Hux said patiently.

There was another exchange among the scavengers and then they maneuvered their ship next to the shuttle. Finn slid down next to where Hux was unsteadily getting to his feet. He helped him onto the ship and climbed aboard himself. They spent the next hour or two sitting under a shade curtain as the scavengers stripped the wreck for whatever they deemed valuable. Then the rest of the hot, sweltering day, the crew busied themselves with whatever else they saw poking out of the dunes.

Food and drink was not part of their bargain. Finn regretted not having brought the extra water bottles with them. As the day progressed, his thoughts became increasingly disoriented. Hux had little to say to him, but never left his side.

It was night before they finally retired to Niima Outpost. By that point, Finn was exhausted, fevered, starving, and thirsty. As they debarked from the skiff it was Finn hanging on Hux, who had regained some of his balance. "I think that thing was poisonous," Finn said weakly as Hux helped him along.

"I told you not to eat it," Hux said.

"I didn't."

"You must have."

"Are you joking this time?"

"Of course I am. Can't you tell?" He was completely deadpan.

"Uh … no."

Hux snorted. "Maybe that's why no one ever laughs at my jokes. In any case, I know you're trained better than to eat anything with an exoskeleton."

"Your shoulders are … more narrow than I thought." Finn had his arm slung over Hux's shoulders. It was the only thing keeping him upright as they shuffled along toward the only permanent buildings he could see.

"I would dump you in an alley to die, but there don't seem to be any. It's your lucky day. Ha, ha." He said without any noticeable humor. "That's a joke."

"You are such a weirdo."

"Stay conscious. Stay oriented. Stay with me. I will not drag you should you fall." The area they were moving past had featured a tent city of marketplace stalls during the day. Finn vaguely remembered them from the half hour or so he'd spent here, meeting Rey and BB-8. But now the area was bare – everything was packed up and moved in at night. Having had to spend a night on Jakku, Finn understood why.

What he didn't understand was: "Why are you not … dumping me?"

"The night is still young."

"What does that mean?"

"It means many things might yet happen."

"I'm sure someone around here has a long range comm unit. The First Order can't be far."

Hux stopped and sighed. "Finn?"

"Yeah?" Hux used his name.

"Stop insulting me."

"I didn't-"

"Then shut up! I don't know how to deal with you. Stop being an ingrate."

Finn was quiet. They started moving again. Finn found himself deposited outside a building, where he remained for a half hour while Hux went inside to 'negotiate'. He'd fallen into a fevered haze by the time Hux returned. He was helped inside and lowered into a bed with the help of some other Kyozo. He was provided with a container of water.

"Where did your blaster go?" Finn asked Hux blearily after he'd drank. Both blaster and holster were gone and it wasn't like they'd been disarmed. Finn still had his blaster, for example.

"I told you," Hux said. "It was expensive. Now, to business – where is the Resistance base?"

"Whoa. I'm not that far gone. Asshole."

Behind Hux, the Kyozo snorted. Hux asked, "Would you prefer to tell him?"

"I don't even know who that is."

"He's the local law enforcement, Constable Zuvio. You're in a jail cell of some kind, technically, but I'm renting it like a hotel room. Your Resistance allies have disappeared. The First Order has a patrol ship in orbit. It answered my hail. I will leave soon, but the deal was that I see you released _safely_ and that doesn't mean abandoned in a gutter, which is where you'll be once the amount I paid for you runs out." Hux turned to Zuvio. "You said you had bacta?"

The Kyozo grumbled and headed off to find the medical supplies. Hux turned back to Finn. "You obviously have a systemic infection. Or you've been envenomed, as you suspect. Medical care here, like the accommodations, are insufficient. You need to get back to your allies, to the company of those who will do whatever is necessary to save your life."

"You're not going to leave me to die because you promised me something out in the desert?" Finn smiled loopily, realizing finally what Hux had considered so 'insulting'.

Hux leaned close to him, looking into his eyes with the frightening intensity that Finn had once mistaken for mania. And maybe that wasn't a mistake. Hux said, "I want you to go back to the Resistance and tell them to stop fighting us. I want you to tell them I'm a man of my word. I want the victory you described. That's worth more than my blaster or my hatred of you for what you did. I'm sure Ren has filled their heads with descriptions of me as a rabid cur who staged a treasonous coup to oust him from power. You don't know the whole story."

Finn tried to pull his thoughts together. It was like swimming upstream. "But if I tell you where the base is, you'll just attack it."

"If I attack it, I can't negotiate. It has become painfully clear to me since Crait that utterly defeating the Resistance in the field is useless. Just as here on Jakku. We won. The war goes on. But if you want my promise, I will extend that also – You have my word that your base will be safe until the first Resistance strike against the Order. After that, I bear no obligation to keep the information secret."

Finn sighed. He didn't think he could pull himself together enough to operate a comm unit, but he didn't have to send the signal directly. Just one to Maz would be enough.

* * *

There was no assault on Takodana or interception of the lone freighter that came to pick up Finn. Peace talks began a week later.


End file.
